


Heal Thyself

by Im_The_Doctor (Bofur1)



Category: Video Blogging RPF, Youtube RPF
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Angst and Feels, Anti being a creeper, Anxiety, Caretaking, Comfort/Angst, Concern, Death Threats, Dysfunctional Relationships, Exhaustion, Fever, Illnesses, Influenza, Light Petting, Magic, Medical Procedures, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Violence, Missing in Action, Multiple Personalities, Multiple Selves, Neglect, Overworking, Panic, Sickfic, Sleep Deprivation, Sleepiness, Stress, Surprises, Very Very Mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-15 08:31:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12317436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bofur1/pseuds/Im_The_Doctor
Summary: Jack has been going nonstop lately and has made himself sick. Whenever that happens, all of his Egos share the side effects. Dr. Schneeplestein has been working as relentlessly as their creator, trying to nurse all of the others back to health. He's been completely neglecting himself, however, and a certain Glitch threatens to take advantage of that.





	1. Chapter 1

“Bro, you look ravaged,” Chase had announced this morning, as open and honest as ever, as soon as he laid eyes on his doctor. Schneeplestein had, of course, blown off the concern, but now he genuinely wished he hadn’t.

The truth was that he felt as “ravaged” as he looked. Thanks to a series of mistakes, excruciating stubbornness, and a nasty bout of the flu, Schneep had spent four days now without sleep and he was certainly starting to feel it.

 _Sleep is for the weak_ , he reminded himself of Jack’s motto as his hands shook and cold coffee sloshed over the rim of his mug. _Sleep is for the weak_ …

Jack had been going nonstop lately, recording videos into the early morning and skipping a few meals a day. He knew it wasn’t healthy and had insisted he was going to stop soon, but the end he had planned wasn’t soon enough. Needless to say, he had made himself sick and whenever that happened, all of his Egos unfortunately shared the side effects, though they manifested themselves in different ways:

Jackieboy Man got the worst of the headaches, to the point where he had to strip off his heroic garb and spent hours on end hiding himself in blankets, despite the fact that the others already knew every detail of his features. Schneep had been there, loyal and ready to offer his services, briskly combing a few tangles out of the older Persona’s hair before folding the mask and red jumpsuit into a nearby drawer.

Marvin’s voice completely broke, leaving him with nothing but a squeak to voice his agony as aches wracked his body. His cat mask was pushed high onto his forehead as he struggled to breathe through his aching throat; his nose was too stuffed to manage. Though he was somewhat thankful that Marv didn’t have the voice to complain, Schneep gave him some warmed potato soup to help his throat and bundled him up in his cape.

Chase, their youngest, the one with boundless energy and good cheer, became a huddled ball of misery, the vim and vigor sapped out of him as he struggled for the simplest of tasks, like turning over in bed. He was the weakest, constantly fluctuating between chills and hot flashes. There wasn’t as much for Schneep to do there but readjust the blankets and clean up the drinks Chase had spilled by losing his grip on them.

Even Anti wasn’t entirely exempt. While Schneep avoided him at all costs on a good day, he could occasionally hear a high-pitched, staticky shriek of pained rage or feel the telltale vibrations of the Glitch’s aura passing by in the lab. There would be a following crash as Anti knocked something over in his hurry to raid supplies for himself and it inevitably made Schneep jump, but Anti would blink out of existence again before he had the chance to lunge for a weapon. Perhaps that was for the best. Schneep could only surmise how dangerous Anti might be when he was ill and volatile.

Ever so slowly, they were starting to get better. Chase was recuperating the fastest, which was why he had bothered to stop by and make the observation about Schneep’s current state. With all of his time spent rushing around and tending to his fellow Personas, Schneep hadn’t thought much about himself. About an hour ago, Jackieboy had stopped on his way back from the restroom and mumbled at Schneep to “get some rest, for all our sakes”, but the doctor had ignored it until he realized that his medical notes were performing an alarming exotic dance in front of his eyes and making him feel quite nauseous.

The rest of his coffee splashed onto his desk as he tipped the mug over, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Only just realizing how low the temperature in the lab was, he rubbed his arms against the cold seeping into them and then pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to rub away the tunnels of pressure. To make it all worse, to make it all infuriating, he was embarrassingly close to tears and he had no clear idea why.

He also didn’t have any clear idea where his room was, he realized with a vague sense of surprise as he stumbled down the nearest hallway. It seemed to stretch on for miles, even though he recalled that he’d crossed it dozens of times in the span of the day.

Since his wife had left him for that blasted tennis instructor, he rarely ever spent time in his bedroom. He would take a nap every so often in his office chair or on a thin, foldaway cot wedged in the corner of his office, but right now it felt like every single joint in his body was cramping at once. He needed something softer, he needed…

 _Leaba. Bett_. _Codladh. Schlaf_.

Eventually he gave up on finding the right word, keeping a hand on the wall to steady himself. He had a feeling that if he fell, he wouldn’t be able to get back up without help, which would be absolutely humiliating. He was a doctor, after all, and doctors were supposed to at least _look_ competent! As brilliant as he was, he needed to go one step further and act the part. He was in complete—

 _Pain_. He hit a wall, his legs gave out underneath him, and even as he scrabbled for purchase, he knew he wouldn’t find any. Another second passed before he accepted his fate and landed in an ungainly heap on the floor. Trembling as he tried to rise, he did his best to stifle the instinctive sob with a whimpered curse in a mangled combination of German and Gaelic. His breath was coming much faster than it should be; if he had a panic attack now, he really would pass out.

“W̸ell, ļ̕ook w̴͢͠hat w̴͢͠e ḣ̙̩̺̯̩̰͉ave h̷̨͡ere…” an all-too-familiar voice hissed through clenched teeth. Schneep shuddered again, harder, as he jerked his head up. All he registered were torn black jeans, but that was all he needed. He shrank back as far as he could, trying to hide, trying to make himself as small as possible. Anti barely moved, watching the feeble escape attempt with a fanged sneer that stretched from ear to ear.

“N̸̴̛o weapons today, Ḑ̴octor?” he scoffed, tension rising in his voice behind his smile. “N̺̗̾͂̍o J̶͘͟a̸̶͜c͡k to save you…An̷d none͞ ̵of ̶the ͡ǫth̢e̶r͟s wo͝ul̴d fi̧nd ͢y͢ou ̶t̷ill̵ m̨͢orning!”

Schneep tried to respond with defiance, venom, anything to force the Glitch to back off, but instead he just found himself gasping for breath when he opened his mouth and could do nothing but helplessly shake his head.

Giggling at the sight, Anti lunged, snatched the doctor’s arms and swung him upright, slamming him into the wall and knocking out whatever air he had left in his lungs. He couldn’t cry out as he was dragged along the wall, every doorknob backstabbing him, every doorframe thudding against his shoulder blades. He tried, he tried to thrash and struggle, but his arms wouldn’t obey and Anti was relentless, pulling him away from the wall just long enough to throw him against it again. Stars danced in front of his eyes, his arms slumped, he kicked weakly. He didn’t even know where his foot landed.

 _Can’t let him_ — “No…” he gasped hoarsely, the first word he could find. “No, no-no-no-no-no—”

Anti offered a full-bodied laugh at that one, hauling Schneep away from the wall again so his feet skidded out on the linoleum. “H̸͢ow does it f͢e̶el, Do̵c͡tor,” he snarled gleefully, “to b̡e̵ compl͠et͏e̸l͠y  _pǫ̵w̢͟͟erļe̷̢ss?!_ ”

Before Schneep could answer, his feet were torn away from the ground, leaving one of his shoes behind along the way, and it took his panicked, addled mind several seconds to realize that he was hanging over Anti’s shoulder, kicking at air. His arms hung uselessly down the Glitch’s back; they wouldn’t move, they wouldn’t move—why wouldn’t they _move?!_ The sharp bone in Anti’s shoulder gouged into his solar plexus, sending surges of pain through his chest as he strained to breathe.

A cold wash of air hit his back and he shivered violently, yelping as the other Ego heaved him away. He landed hard and hissed in pain, though he was on something softer than Anti’s shoulder. For a long minute there was silence, broken only by the occasional static burst and Schneep’s distressed gasps, and then the doctor lifted his head as much as he could, blinking back uninvited tears.

He was…on a _bed_ , he realized in belated shock. It was his own. Anti stood at the foot of it, head cocked slightly, staring at him with pitch-black eyes.

“I could k̕įll ͜yo̴u here͝, but y̵̡͡ou’re just like _him_ ,” he growled, the static growing louder, accusing. “I̴͢͞t wouldn’t be̵ a̕s f͠un̸͟͡ to s̏͛laughter you if you couldn’t f͠igh̵t̷ back!” With those words, he leaned, planting his hands on the end of the bed. His next words were softer, colder. “S̴o rest up, Ḑ̴octor. Without you, your f͟͢͡a̴̷͝vo͡͝r̴̴i̢t͠e̷̛ ̶b̡͞͝ơy might not b͏e ̷so l͟u̷çky next time.”

Schneep blinked again, the tears spilling over. Again he opened his mouth to speak and couldn’t find any words; before he knew it, his head became too heavy, his heartrate slowed, and Anti became nothing but a blur of green and black. He was out cold before the Glitch had left.


	2. Chapter 2

Marvin the Magnificent cleared his throat experimentally. It still hurt somewhat, though not nearly as much as it had before lunch and the following nap. He glanced over at the empty soup bowl on the bedspread beside him and, for the first time in several days, allowed himself a slight smile before rising. Somehow he had this vague, unplaced feeling that Jack was just coming down from the peak of his illness, which meant his Egos would be recovering soon too.

That didn’t mean he was entirely himself yet, Marvin noted, wincing as his legs protested the walk across his room. “Just take it slow, Marv,” he rasped under his breath, leaning against the wall for a moment to catch his breath and rotate his legs as the blood returned. He wouldn’t mind a few more painkillers if Schneep was still in business.

Thus decided, he gingerly made his way to the lab, drawing his cape closer around him as he registered the chill in the air. The lab itself was even colder, forcing an achy shiver down his spine and setting a chatter to his teeth.

“S-Schneep? You in here?” he called, shying away from the cold air vent as he peered around corners. He probably should have put on shoes before coming here; when it came to Schneep and his experiments, one could never tell what kind of… _matter_ they could come across. No sooner had this thought occurred to him did his right sock land in a lukewarm puddle. Recoiling with an instinctive curse, he stripped off his dripping sock and flung it at the biohazard bin nearby before actually examining the puddle he had stepped in.

Fortunately it wasn’t a bodily fluid. Marvin followed the trail to the cluttered desk a few feet away and then paused, simply staring at it for a few seconds. The overturned mug and spilled coffee seemed out of place. The doctor may be overly excitable sometimes, but he wasn’t particularly clumsy—in fact, apart from Anti, he had the most finely tuned motor skills of the lot, and he was even less likely to be clumsy with his _coffee_. Unlike the others, who had built up a tolerance to it, he treated caffeine like his lifeblood.

Armed with an unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach, Marvin backed out of the lab, aiming for the kitchen next. There was a chance that Schneep would be in there making another vat of soup, even if the first one had been large enough to feed them for three weeks.

The first batch was the only one Marvin found on the stove. The potatoes were soggy and the pot itself was stone cold, as was the coffee machine and the tea kettle. He did find a few empty beer cans that hadn’t made it to the bin, but he couldn’t be sure that it was Schneep who left them there. He hadn’t left the confines of his own room for a while; for all he knew, Chase had gone through one of his depressive episodes, missing his wife, and had used these to cope.

The magician didn’t have any further luck in the conference room, the studio, and the O.R. By the time he actually considered checking Schneep’s bedroom, Marvin was willing to admit that he was considerably worried. As soon as he turned on the bedroom light, he realized he had good reason to be. Even from the doorway he could see the doctor’s ashen pallor and he automatically jumped to the worst conclusion.

Lunging across the room, Marvin crouched next to the younger Ego, grabbing at his nearest wrist. Almost immediately he sensed a rapid pulse, which alleviated only part of his panic. Schneep was certainly alive, but beyond that his breath was shallow and he was much too hot—just as feverish as Chase had been a few days ago, if not worse.

“Okay, okay, don’t panic, don’t lose your cool,” Marvin muttered frantically as he swept his palms together, producing the King of Hearts and the King of Clubs.

He definitely wasn’t as good at conjuring magic with his fingers as he was with his wand, but he worked as quickly as he could, charming the cards to seek out Jackieboy and Chase. For an instant he wavered, fingers hovering over the Jack of Diamonds, and then he set it aside. Their creator needed to focus on himself and his own recovery; that would probably help all of them more than his presence here. With nothing else to do there, he returned his attention to the doctor.

“Hey,” he hissed, shaking him as gently as he could while choking back his worry. “Schneep? Henrik? C’mon, wake up—”

“Anti…”

The word stopped Marvin cold. Schneep took a stuttering breath which quickly became a coughing fit. Marvin couldn’t help but flinch back a little as the other Ego flailed upright, struggling for his breath and his voice simultaneously.

“An— _Anti!_ Have to—He’s going to—”

“Stop, stop, stop!” Marvin commanded, snatching at the doctor’s damp, clinging clothes to keep him where he was. “Where d’you think you’re going? What’s Anti done?”

“I…He was…” Schneep gasped, shaking his head and then visibly regretting it. He nearly tumbled off the side of the bed as he slumped back down, curling into himself and lapsing into German. “Ugh, _Mir ist so heiß_ … _und schwindlig_ …”

“What? What does that mean?”

“Don’t…feel good…”

Marvin couldn’t tell if that was a translation or just a remark, but he offered a tense laugh at the understatement and pushed himself to his feet, hurrying into the adjacent bathroom and scavenging through the medicine cabinet for a thermometer. When he returned, he expected Schneep to put up a fight—he had always been fairly anal about letting the others touch his tools, much less “play doctor” with them—but instead he opened his mouth to accept it without complaint. Was he sicker than Marvin had thought?

 _That’d be impressive,_ he mused nervously as he fidgeted through the standard seconds. _I thought he was dead!_ After the beep, he leaned in and announced, “40 °C,” to which Schneep nodded faintly and murmured something unintelligible around the device before going rigid and coughing it out. Marvin set that next to the Jack of Diamonds as the doctor muffled his coughing in his pillow. Once the fit eased into rapid panting, the magician gingerly squeezed his shoulder.

“You okay?” he asked, stupidly. It was all he could think to say.

“I—Marvin, I don’t feel good,” Schneep repeated in a whisper. It sounded like his throat was laced with sand and Marvin bit his lower lip, his own throat tightening in sympathy.

“Tell me what to do here, Schneep, cos I got no idea,” he urged. Schneep sobbed wordlessly in response and Marvin cursed, glancing over his shoulder toward the door. The others should have been here already if he’d gotten the spell right! “Listen, I need to find Jackieboy; he’ll know how to fix this. I don’t know how to get your fever down.”

“But he—Don’t go!” Schneep implored, seizing a fistful of Marvin’s cape to tug him back. “He—He tell me, he said he could kill me here! He said—”

“I’m right here,” Marvin assured him helplessly, glancing sideways a second time for a completely different reason. When he strained his ears, he couldn’t hear any telltale static, but anxiety made him doubt himself. “Nothin’ is going to happen. Anti’s not gettin’ anywhere near you, but you’re really sick and I have no friggin’ clue what to _do!_ ”

For a few heavy moments, Schneep didn’t seem to understand. At last he pried his hand away from the cape, leaving his arm to hang over the side of the bed. “ _Es tut mir leid_ ,” he mumbled as he let his eyes close.

It sounded like an apology, Marvin noted with a pang of guilt, sighing heavily and shifting so he could lean his back against the bedside table. Just forty-five minutes ago, he had thought today was going to be an improvement.

“Marv?”

Jackieboy’s voice startled him and called his attention back to the doorway, where the older Ego was clutching at his aching head with one hand and holding the glowing King of Hearts in the other. Chase wasn’t far behind, narrowly catching himself before he tripped on the edge of the blankets tangled around him. Panting, he leaned against the doorframe so his legs wouldn’t give out. Once he was a little more stable, he took in the scene and immediately swallowed hard.

“What’s goin’ on?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, sure enough, I couldn't leave this fic as a oneshot, so here you go! Have a lot of Marvin panicking, Schneep panicking, and Anti creeping them out even when he's not there! And don't you worry, Chapter Three should be up soon too :D


	3. Chapter 3

Schneep woke gradually, trembling and confused; as soon as his mind registered all of the sensations he was feeling, he wished that he could have _stayed_ confused. Every part of his body was stiff and tingling with pain and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t turn over; a vague pressure on his chest kept him in place. Blinking blearily against the green fringe hanging in his eyes, he peered down to see that the weight on his chest was a pile of blankets.

As he turned his head to look around, his stomach turned in the opposite direction, forcing him to slump down and breathe shallowly so he wouldn’t gag. There wouldn’t be much to bring up if he vomited; the last thing he remembered eating was a quarter-helping of potato soup, leftovers from what he had cooked for Marv.

 _Hot soup in his stomach_. He was hungry…

Startling awake a second time, Schneep instinctively flinched away from the fingers touching his forehead, his sharp breath catching in his throat and transforming into a coughing fit.

“Whoa, whoa, hey,” a disembodied voice soothed, the fingers belonging to it brushing at his hair a second time. “Calm down, it’s just me.”

“Jack?” Schneep ventured faintly.

“Nah, bro, s’Chase,” the younger Ego corrected with more sympathy than apology. He finally managed to plant his hand firmly on the doctor’s forehead, though he pulled away just as quickly. “Jeez, Marvin wasn’t lying. You _are_ burnin’ up.”

Schneep blinked at him a few times, echoing blearily, “Marvin…?” _Potato soup. Hungry_. When had he last seen the magician? He didn’t remember seeing him after the soup.

“Oh, yeah, you weren’t exactly all there for that bit,” Chase recalled, a shadow passing over his features. “Marvin went lookin’ for you about twelve hours ago, but you weren’t in your lab. He looked everywhere else before finding you passed out in here. You were pretty out of it, no matter what he tried…I’ll admit we went to pieces for a while there and then Jackieboy had the idea of grabbin’ Dr. Iplier.”

Groggy as he was, Schneep was having trouble keeping up with all of this new information. “Wh—? Iplier? N-No, you didn’t have to bother the Dr. Iplier…” he groaned, already regretting the amount of trouble they had gone to. Of course he was glad they cared enough about him for it all, but if there was one thing Henrik von Schneeplestein never wanted to be, it was a _burden_. He definitely wasn’t feeling well enough to rise, but he did his best, propping himself up onto sore elbows and willing them to hold steadily. Chase leapt to his feet with agility that Schneep could definitely be jealous of right now.

“What’re you doing?!” he demanded incredulously, holding his hands out to stop him. “Lie down, would you? You haven’t rested in days!”

Swallowing hard, Schneep detangled his legs from the mass of blankets and swung them over the side of the bed, wishing he could ignore how dizzy the movement made him. “I sleep for twelve hours,” he countered, pinching the bridge of his nose as his headache returned.

“And do you feel peppy and happy again? Huh?” Chase challenged. “Iplier said you have _pneumonia!_ That’s serious stuff, okay? You need to rest! _”_

“Pneumonia? I don’t think so,” Schneep grunted, without as much confidence as he might have hoped. Gripping the bedside table, ignoring Chase’s incredulous stare, he pushed himself to his feet, only to topple forward as his legs malfunctioned. Instinctively jumping to intercept, Chase nearly collapsed himself as he took the brunt of Schneep’s weight; while he didn’t weigh any more or less than Chase, the younger Ego was still regaining his own strength.

“Ugh, for all of our sakes, don’t be a _stup_ , Schneep!” he complained, steering the doctor back onto the edge of the bed.

Schneep had heard Jack use those words before, he realized as he willed his vision to stop spinning. Clever, but unfair of Chase to pull the creator card on him; he knew how much Schneep cared for their creator and was using his words against him.

Scowling lightly, he countered, “I’m doing better…” Another rebellious coughing fit cut through his reassurances and Chase raised his eyebrows dubiously, planting one hand on his hip and shoving a thermometer in Schneep’s face with the other. Doing his best to stifle the indignation tightening his stomach, Schneep reluctantly accepted it, though he couldn’t resist batting Chase’s hands away after the beep, grumbling around the device that he could look himself.

“…37 °C,” he announced at last, guiltlessly meeting Chase’s expectant gaze.

“Okay,” Chase huffed, unimpressed. “What’s it really?” At Schneep’s startled blink, he offered a bitter half-smile. “C’mon. With my married life, I know when someone’s not bein’ straight with me. Let’s get it.”

“40.2 °C,” Schneep mumbled, as if he hoped Chase wouldn’t hear and would just forget about asking again.

“I need to go tell Jackieboy; he said to let him know if you went above forty again,” Chase told him, pointing an authoritative finger from which Schneep couldn’t help but reel back slightly; his depth perception was a little off. “This one’s called ‘Trusting You Not to Crawl Away While I’m Gone.’ I don’t think you’d get very far anyway.”

With the way his legs were shaking, Schneep couldn’t fool himself into disagreeing. He stayed where he was as Chase disappeared, tightening his hands over his knees. Before he knew it, he was trying very hard not to fall asleep again. He shouldn’t be this tired after sleeping for so long, but by the thermometer’s account, he was generating enough heat to keep himself thoroughly drowsy. Just as he reached that middle state between conscious and unconscious, lolling backwards toward the pillows, he sensed them: cold fingers along the side of his neck and a grating whisper behind his ear.

_L͘͝etting ̵y̡̛our g̵͢uard d̴own  ̶̛͢n҉ow?_

Hollering hoarsely in alarm, Schneep flung himself sideways, landing in a heap on the floor just as the door opened. Chase made a noise of disappointment as Jackieboy skirted past him, grabbing one of Schneep’s arms and patting his back carefully as he resisted the urge to throw up.

“Bro, I told you not to move!” Chase scolded, throwing his hands up. “Now see what ya did? Your face matches your hair!”

“I heard him,” Schneep hissed in a strangled voice, resisting the nausea to clutch at Jackieboy’s arms. “He was just here…” As the others shared a concerned glance, he sank more heavily against the other Persona in dismay. “Y-You do not believe me!”

“Well, I know Anti can be anywhere he wants,” Jackieboy admitted. “But there’s not much we can do about that except fend him off when he actually makes an appearance _we_ can see.”

“You…” Schneep trailed off, unsure of what to say. Jackieboy took advantage of the silence, pressing the back of his hand against the doctor’s cheek.

“Let’s just focus on gettin’ your fever down,” he suggested, not quite as soothingly as he hoped; even though his mask was back in place, his eyes were troubled. “Anti’s in for a whoopin’ another day.”

Schneep opened his mouth to—what could he do? He wanted to beg for another solution, any kind of reassurance that the Glitch wouldn’t be there with a knife at his throat when he blinked, but there wasn’t any. There couldn’t be any. As he settled back into the bed and Jackieboy rearranged the blankets for him, he did his best to hide his face in them. It was pathetic; he was starting to cry again for no reason at all. This was why he despised being sick; it always made him act ridiculous.

“Aw, no, don’t…What’s the matter? What’d I do wrong?” Jackieboy asked, aghast.

Schneep would have answered that he hadn’t done anything wrong, that all of the blame was on him for being weak and helpless, that he _hated_ it more than they could ever know, that he was more frightened of Anti than he ever had been before—but his throat didn’t want to cooperate anymore. Swallowing bile, he tucked his chin against his chest, wishing he could shrink.

It was then that he felt a gloved hand on his shoulder. He cringed just a little, taken aback by the sudden touch, but then the hand moved to his hair, smoothing it back from his clammy forehead and running fingers through it, and he appreciated that a bit more.

“You did this for me,” Jackieboy pointed out in answer to his unasked question. “Just returnin’ the favor.”

“You do this because you are the hero,” Schneep informed him in a small voice, blinking glassily. “I…I don’t want to be saved.”

“Sure, you do,” Jackieboy countered matter-of-factly, though not unkindly, as he looked for more tangles in his counterpart’s green fringe. For a minute or two the only noise was Chase puttering around the bathroom, cleaning up the mess Marvin had made while searching for the thermometer. Gradually Schneep’s headache started to fade and his breathing evened out as he concentrated on the prospect of _warmth…comfort…family_.

“Everybody needs to be taken care of once in a while, Doc,” Chase stated as he reemerged to lean against the bathroom door. “Nothing wrong with that.”

Schneep couldn’t really bring himself to believe that, but he didn’t object.

“You can sleep,” one of them suggested; he couldn’t tell which one. “We’ll be here when you wake up.”

Why was that thought so comforting? Schneep wondered hazily as he started to doze off again.

Maybe he didn’t need to know. Anti had sworn that he would wait, bide his time before trying again. The respite, however brief, was a comfort that Schneep could latch onto, something…brave, loving, and loyal. Most importantly, those last words were true.

For now, they would be here. For now, they would be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be fluffy, y'know! I was going to have all of the other Egos taking care of their doctor (and I might write a follow-up so that actually happens) but then Anti decided it was _his_ show! I hope I wrote him accurately; it's my first time writing more than hints about him. 
> 
> EDIT: Well, you sort of got fluff at the end? More like a lot of hurt/comfort and Anti being a stalker, but I hope you enjoyed anyway! XD Leave kudos or a comment down below if you want to tell me what you thought; I'd love to hear from you!


End file.
